134 The Pocket Gopher. 



fested by prairie-dogs was made compulsory. All expenses 

 were defrayed from the township treasury, the county commis- 

 sioners having previously made a special levy for the purpose. 

 The vigorous campaign that followed the enactment of this law 

 almost wiped the prairie-dog from the face of the land. A 

 reenactment, therefore, of the prairie-dog law of 1903, so 

 modified as to fit the case of the pocket gopher, is, in our 

 opinion, the wisest measure that could be adopted. 



Even though we do not get a compulsory "extermination" 

 law for the pocket gopher, the thrifty farmer would profit much 

 by legal enactment compelling road-overseers to keep down the 

 pest on the roadsides. The same should apply also to the fore- 

 men having charge of the various sections on the railroad 

 right of way. It is a matter of common observation that when 

 gophers invade a clean field they usually enter from the road- 

 sides, railroad right of way, or neglected fence-row. 



METHODS OF COMBATING. 



Poisoning. Gophers do not possess the shrewdness and 

 cunning that have become instinctive in many other wild crea- 

 tures because of the constant necessity imposed upon the latter 

 of avoiding and escaping enemies. Later experience in the 

 wiles of man has evidently taught them nothing, for they sel- 

 dom reject any kind of poisoned food offered them. 



As stated before, poisoning is the more thorough and easily 

 applied method of ridding a badly infested farm of the pest. 

 It is also the best method if the territory to be freed from 

 gophers is of considerable extent. In either of the above cases 

 one man can accomplish as much with poisoned bait as a half 

 dozen could in the same time with traps. The danger of kill- 

 ing stock or useful birds and animals, attending the use of 

 poison for prairie-dogs, English sparrows, and the like, is en- 

 tirely eliminated by the plan of introducing the bait through, 

 small openings into the gophers' burrows. 



Since the pocket gopher lives naturally on the roots and 

 tubers of native plants, or on succulent vegetation drawn down 

 into the burrow from the surface, it follows that a close sub- 

 stitute for these articles will make the best bait for poisoning. 

 Knowledge gained by personal experiments and by careful in- 

 quiry among farmers and fruit growers goes to show that 

 pieces of potato, apple, or sweet potato, poisoned by inserting 

 a few crystals of strychnine into slits made with the point of 



